In 2161, civil war has broken out between the Guild Dominions and the Islanders. American fights American. Families are torn apart. No one is safe. The free Islanders are rounded up and placed back inside the walls of Island 42, where they freeze or starve. In the Mountain West, the two armies grow increasingly brutal in their pursuit of victory.
When I first began writing The Islander in 2001, such a scenario seemed unimaginable. Today, in 2016, does anyone doubt that something like it might someday be possible? Every year we march closer and closer to the possibility of walled off Islands where dispossessed Americans struggle to survive. To me it no longer sounds like science fiction.
No matter. The story will go where it has to. The ultimate result of oppression, the stripping of rights, the hegemony of one group over another always leads to violence.
